Upgrade From Hell....

Ok, so we finally decided to upgrade my wifes 486. I bought a used Intel Pentium 200mhz MMX system with 80mb ram and case.

I formatted and installed the two hard drives from the 486. Master is a Maxtor 540 and the slave is a Seagate 850 on the onboard pci primary ide controller. I added the floppy drive and a SB16 sound card for the CD Rom. Thats all I added to get started.

I got the drives installed and configured in BIOS, Installed Windows 95 w/usb support and all installed fine. From windows I can access both C and D drive as well as the CD Rom drive...no problem. However, whenever I try to access the floppy drive from Windows, the system comes to a screeching halt. Reset time! If, however, I use the MS-DOS prompt, I can access the A: drive with no problem. Even windows programs accessed this way will work and come back to windows and finish fine. It is when I access the A: drive using the RUN command, explorer or any other way from windows.

When I view the Device Manager from control panel, the floppy drive and floppy controller seems fine. No yellow flags. However, I do have a yellow flag on the:
Primary IDE Controller (dual fifo)
The secondary and the parent device - Intel 82371SB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller - show to be OK. When I view the properties of the failed Primary IDE Controller(dual fifo), it says that the device is not present, not working properly, or does not have all the driver installed. Also, in the performance tab of system properties, it shows that both hard drives are using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system. I checked every single entry in the device manager to see if any other device showed a conflict, none do.

I have tried reinstalling Windows four times. The same comes up each time. I can't understand why I am having this floppy drive lock-up and the yellow flag on the primary IDE. I'm sure they must be related, but it doesn't make sense since the hard drives seem to be operating OK. I also do not understand the MS-DOS compatibilty mode on the hard drives.

I also tried a fix that was supposed to correct a problem between Windows 95 and the Intel 82371SB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller. Apparantly Windows didn't have that device lised in the MSHDC.INF. I tried this fix and it didn't help. This problem was reported to cause CD Rom failures on the secondary ide, which isn't my problem, but tried it since it was the same hardware. In any event, this didn't help either. Tried formatting and installing again, back to ground zero...

When those harddrives were in the 486 did You partition them with some kind of third party product EZ-Drive or something like that (used to fool earlier BIOSes to overcome the 512 Mb barrier)? It's then possible that Win95 in itself does not have a driver for it => MS-DOS-mode for the harddrives.

Are your drives set up to use LBA on the new system, or are they still using a drive overlay (probably inherited from the old system) to overcome the 512 Mb limitation? You have formatted already, correct? if so, try restoring Setup defaults in the BIOS; you may have some weird setting enabled there. Also, if there is genuinely a problem with the primary IDE controller, you should either:
1. try to get your money back, if it's still in warranty or let the techs deal with it.
2. put the drives on the secondary IDE port (although on some systems it will not boot in this configuration).

If you're sure that all device driver you load in config.sys and autoexec.bat are real mode compatible or you don't have anything in config.sys and autoexec.bat in c:\, then you can try the following.

Windows probably put a NOIDE entry into this registry key,
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDX\IOS and you must
remove it. This entry is put there any time Win95 can't load 32-bit drivers,
and after it's in there you can't load Windows drivers on boot-up until it's
gone. Go to Start button and select Run, then key in regedit and click OK. In REGEDIT, go to Edit->Find and key in NOIDE and click Find Next. When found, delete it and reboot.
Windows should now rediscover your hardware and let you install drivers.

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Wow big points !!
Right-click My Computer > select Properties > Performance > File System > Troubleshooting and see if there are boxes that have a check-mark in them. if so remove them.
then try chewhoungs tip and remove the noide key.
if this still doesn't work start windows in safe-mode and go to system-panel and remove your ide and floppy drive controllers (maybe even your cd) and then restart and see what windows will put back for it)

Download and install this inf update from Intel. Then under Device Manager, remove the IDE controller parent device and reboot. Win95 should then load the correct driver needed for your IDE controller.

WOW. Looks as if the points have attracted lots of suggestions. Thanks. Let me answer you all at once...

sKiiKe,
Yes, the one drive did use EZ-Drive before, but wouldn't formatting that drice have removed that? As for loose cables on the floppy, wouldn't that cause the drive to not work in DOS also? I have checked all cables many times.

jcarlo,
Yes, both drives are setup as LBA in BIOS and both have been formatted 4 times. Unfortunately, I can't return it as it was purchased via EBAY. I know...a chance I took. But I don't think the problem is damage, but compatibilty with Win95. All drives work fine in DOS. I have restored BIOS defaults on several set-up attempts. I will try the secondary IDE idea. Is there any settings in BIOS I will have to make for secondary ide?

Chewhoung,
I have no autoexec.bat or config.sys, so no old drivers are loaded from there. The NOIDE is part of the fix I tried before that I mentioned. It hasn't helped. I searched registry again, and NOIDE does not appear at this time.

larbel,
I have tried Intels newer version of the driver and that has not helped either.

************** SUMMARY ******************
You all have made good suggestions, but so far they are all things I have tried. The suggestion with the new Intel driver and removing the NOIDE was one I found on the net at http://www2.ldd.net/scribers/griz/intelbus.htm
This is apparently a common problem, but my symtoms are different and this fix hasn't helped. Please keep the ideas flowing!!

Thanks.

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garymaceAuthor Commented: 1999-01-29

WOW. Looks as if the points have attracted lots of suggestions. Thanks. Let me answer you all at once...

sKiiKe,
Yes, the one drive did use EZ-Drive before, but wouldn't formatting that drice have removed that? As for loose cables on the floppy, wouldn't that cause the drive to not work in DOS also? I have checked all cables many times.

jcarlo,
Yes, both drives are setup as LBA in BIOS and both have been formatted 4 times. Unfortunately, I can't return it as it was purchased via EBAY. I know...a chance I took. But I don't think the problem is damage, but compatibilty with Win95. All drives work fine in DOS. I have restored BIOS defaults on several set-up attempts. I will try the secondary IDE idea. Is there any settings in BIOS I will have to make for secondary ide?

Chewhoung,
I have no autoexec.bat or config.sys, so no old drivers are loaded from there. The NOIDE is part of the fix I tried before that I mentioned. It hasn't helped. I searched registry again, and NOIDE does not appear at this time.

larbel,
I have tried Intels newer version of the driver and that has not helped either.

************** SUMMARY ******************
You all have made good suggestions, but so far they are all things I have tried. The suggestion with the new Intel driver and removing the NOIDE was one I found on the net at http://www2.ldd.net/scribers/griz/intelbus.htm
This is apparently a common problem, but my symtoms are different and this fix hasn't helped. Please keep the ideas flowing!!

There is a strong possibility that the EZ-drive put it's bios patch in the master boot record and the /mbr switch rebuilds that. After you do that, repartition and rebuild system again and see if that helps.

Win95 did not include UDMA drivers, hence the yellow mark. As for the floppy, you may have have a hardware problem in the chipset. Another possibility si some obscure setup setting. Make sure you do not check swap floppy drive, floppy seek, search for new floppies at startup, or other such things.

Win95 950 or 950A does not come with UDMA drivers, but it will identify it as Mode4 driver, there would not be any yellow mark. Win95 950B or 950C comes with DMA driver, which is also the same as UDMA driver, still it would not have yellow marks.

As per my comment on 1/29 and Ralph's answer, what he needs is the correct inf file from Intel for his IDE controllers. Again, the yellow marks is caused by unidentify IDE controllers, not because of without UDMA drivers.

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